Kivalov’s Castle — also known as “Harry Potter’s Castle” — on fire after a Russian missile strike, Odesa, Ukraine, April 29, 2024

Monday’s Coverage: “Very Difficult” Situation in East as US Aid Awaited

Map: Institute for the Study of War

UPDATE 0712 GMT:

The Finnish airline Finnair is suspending daily flights to Tartu in Estonia from April 29 to May 31 because of Russian jamming of GPS signals.

Two Finnair flights from Helsinki to Tartu were forced to turn around mid-journey last Thursday and Friday.

Aviation experts said tens of thousands of civilian flights have been affected in recent months. Flights to Tartu are particularly vulnerable because a GPS signal is needed to land at the airport.

Finnair said it will seek approach methods at Tartu that do not require GPS.

UPDATE 0706 GMT:

One civilian was killed and two wounded in Russia’s attacks on the Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine on Monday.

The fatality was in settlement of Krasnohorivka.

one person was killed and another wounded in the Kherson region in southern Ukraine. The Russian attacks damaged 10 houses, a critical infrastructure facility, an administration building, a cultural institution, and a car.

UPDATE 0656 GMT:

UN sanctions monitors say a North Korean Hwasong-11 ballistic missile was used in a Russian strike on Kharkiv in northeast Ukraine on January 2.

Examining the debris of the missile and other evidence, the monitors said the missile was most likely illegally supplied to Russia.

North Korea has been under UN sanctions over its ballistic missile and nuclear programmes since 2006.

Pyongyang has supplied munitions to Russia for the invasion of Ukraine since summer 2023, with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un visiting Vladimir Putin in far eastern Russia in September.

Two days after the Kharkiv strike, US officials cited “new information” that “at least serveral” North Korean missiles had been used. They cited the remains of a missile in the Zaporizhzhia region in southern Ukraine on December 30, and more munitions on January 2.

See also Ukraine War, Day 681: Russia Using North Korean Ballistic Missiles — US Officials

ORIGINAL ENTRY: At least five people have been killed and 32 injured in Russia’s latest missile strikes on civilian areas in Odesa city in southern Ukraine.

Four of the victims, including a 4-year-old girl, are in critical condition, and four are seriously wounded.

Residential buildings and “civil infrastructure” were struck. A private law academy, situated in a popular seafront park, was damaged, and the “Harry Potter Castle” — a turreted Gothic-style building — was set ablaze.

Ukraine Navy spokesperson Dmytro Pletenchuk said the Russians used a Iskander-M ballistic missile with a cluster warhead.

Odesa Mayor Hennadii Trukhanov posted, “Monsters. Beasts. Savages. Scum. I don’t know what else to say.”

Hoping to overrun the port city on the Black Sea — or at least to choke off its production and exports — Russia has carried out aerial assaults on civilians throughout the 26-month invasion.

The “food war” was blunted when Ukraine broke the Russian blockade in the Black Sea, sinking or damaging up to 1/3 of the Russian fleet. Any ground offensive was checked by the Ukrainian counter-offensive in autumn 2022, liberating much of the Kherson region and part of Zaporizhzhia.

In his nightly video address to the nation, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy emphasized that “Russia’s offensive plans can be thwarted”:

Ukrainian strength must be backed up by sufficient support from partners: “Patriots” that need to be in Ukraine now, the 155-mm caliber that must sound as confident as possible on the frontlines, and weapons with sufficient range to destroy Russian logistics.